‘Swamp Football’ wins gold medal

August 29, 2013

Ashley Biles|The Thomaston Times

Upson County native Jeremy Wright recently competed and won a gold medal at the national level of SkillsUSA for his “Swamp Football” sculpture. Wright, a welding student at Southern Crescent Technical College, spoke at last week’s meeting of the Thomaston-Upson Rotary Club to tell a little about his project. He stated he spent a total of 370 hours creating the artwork, working four hours a day, each day of the week on it. Even though he has considered himself an artist since he was a young child, this was the first time he had ever created a 3-D sculpture, planning the entire design out in his head before he ever began. Wright also set up a challenge for himself by using five different elements on his project (aluminum, copper, bronze, steel and stainless steel) a feat that no one else had tried in one sculpture due to the fact that some metals will not adhere together. He stated the hardest part of the project was figuring out how to fuse the stump to the bottom plate because of the different types of metal he used. His instructor, Chris Patterson told him that it could not be done, but that only made Wright work harder. Each piece is also hand sculpted, no castings were used. Wright noted that had it not been for Patterson or the school pushing him and being by his side every step of the way, he would not have made it as far as he did. He has plans to sell his sculpture and aspires to one day become an instructor himself or focus on making sculptures full time. Pictured is Rotary President Alison Uphold, SkillsUSA winner Jeremy Wright and SCTC Instuctor Chris Patterson.